A.G.: Are you cool with Elton now? Basically he said that you're not writing new songs out of fear or laziness.

B.J.: That's his opinion. I don't do it because I don't wanna. He tends to shoot off his mouth - he shoots from the hip. I think his heart is in the right place. Maybe he's trying to motivate me, to get me mad or something. He's kind of like a mom.

Maybe the linked article came from the NYTimes that notmtwain referenced, but it sure seems like someone finally listened to the interview he did with Howard Stern months ago.

It is pretty weird that Billy Joel has not written a new pop song in 20 years, yet he can still sell out arenas. And it doesn't feel like an oldies act like many other 70s-80s artists. I guess that says something about the quality of his work.

StoPPeRmobile:Alphax: MisterMook: hardinparamedic: I propose that for this article, everyone who lost a family member on 9/11 and in the subsequent wars get to line up and kick Billy Joel in the balls.

Why? Because the rest of the world isn't allowed to have been depressed by 9/11?

hardinparamedic:B.L.Z. Bub: Alphax: MisterMook: hardinparamedic: I propose that for this article, everyone who lost a family member on 9/11 and in the subsequent wars get to line up and kick Billy Joel in the balls.

Why? Because the rest of the world isn't allowed to have been depressed by 9/11?

Earguy:It is pretty weird that Billy Joel has not written a new pop song in 20 years, yet he can still sell out arenas. And it doesn't feel like an oldies act like many other 70s-80s artists. I guess that says something about the quality of his work.

I have to give him credit for calling himself an oldies act BECAUSE he hasn't written (or at least, recorded) a new song in twenty years.

I also have to say he sounded thirty years younger at the 12/12/12 concert. Maybe it will spur him into some new music.

And Billy: if you don't want to write pop songs anymore, why not use the success of Movin' Out to develop an original musical?

DENNIS MILLER (1988): That's all very interesting -- which is to say I wasn't listening at all -- but there's a larger issue here, kemosabe: namely, my career. What in the name of Ray Jay Johnson have you been doing for the past 15 years? I'm getting sympathy cards from the cast of Diff'rent Strokes.

DENNIS MILLER (2003): Admittedly, mistakes were made. But I'm working on it. Did you see me last night on Hardball?

DENNIS MILLER (1988): We'll get to that. Um, not to piss in the punch bowl here, but Monday Night Football? What the fark were you thinking?

DENNIS MILLER (2003): It was a high-profile gig.

DENNIS MILLER (1988): What do you know about football? I seem to recall a certain touch football game at Saturday Night Live where I asked Kevin Nealon to "hold my inhaler while I try to catch the oblong object." Football? I thought Joe Montana was a town where you couldn't get cable.

DENNIS MILLER (2003): It was a slight miscalculation.

DENNIS MILLER (1988): The Bay of Pigs was a slight miscalculation; this was a career-ending gaffe. Your weekly intellectual jousts with Dan Fouts and Leslie Vissar did not exactly remind us of the Algonquin roundtable. You alienated two huge portions of the public in one swoop -- sports people, and our hip fan base. Congratulations; you now have the cache of a low-level Tom Arnold, only without a show.

DENNIS MILLER (2003): You bastard.

DENNIS MILLER (1988): Which brings us to your weekly HBO show. I just realized that it has something in common with the great variety talk shows of the past, in that they are all now cancelled. Perhaps in retrospect getting career advice from Joe Piscopo was not wise.

DENNIS MILLER (2003): It's all under control, younger me. I've reinvented myself. Fifteen years from now, you'll be very proud of yourself.

DENNIS MILLER (1988): I have to tell you, and I say this with the greatest warmth and affection: f*ck you. (Flips through pages in folder). The Factorwith Bill O'Reilly. Hardball with Chris Matthews.Scarborough Country ... I'm not even sure what the fark that is, but suddenly I feel like a pack of Cools.

Disclaimer--I like Billy Joel. I grew up with his music. My rock music-hating father loved The Stranger and allowed the cassette to be played on long road trips. I finally saw him live in 2006 and it ranks among the best live shows I've ever seen. That being said:

His biggest problem was that he was dying to be taken seriously and he never was.

Uh, pretty sure little Katie Lee knew who you were, Bill.

Your songs always have an echo of what went before. Not saying they suck--they don't--but they're not original.

If you need money quick, put out a new album. It'll sell five million just because it's unfamiliar Billy Joel.